The present invention relates to a fin stabilized subcaliber propelling cage sabot projectile of the type having a propelling cage sabot which is composed of a plurality of segments which coaxially surround the projectile over only a part of its length and which is provided with an air pocket in its front surface to facilitate separation of the sabot from the projectile after firing.
A projectile of the above type is disclosed in German Patent No. 1,703,507. In such a projectile, the propelling cage sabot serves to transfer the gas pressure to the projectile in the gun barrel, and is discarded as soon as the projectile has left the gun barrel. To facilitate separation, it is known to produce the propelling cage sabot of several, preferably three, segments which coaxially surround the projectile at least over part of its length.
In the endeavor to further improve the final ballistic performance of such projectiles, the realized length to diameter ratio has continued to increase. This also increases the length of the propelling cage sabot since, in the gun barrel this propelling cage sabot still acts as a protection for the comparatively thin projectile against breakage under the extreme stresses exerted, e.g. during transport, loading, unloading.
Since, however, the propelling cage sabot constitutes a dead load percentage, it is desirable to reduce its weight to the greatest possible extent. For overly long projectiles this is possible only by reducing the thickness of the material between the radial flanges provided at the head or front and at the rear or tail of the propelling cage sabot. However, this measure results in a surprisingly poor hit performance for which malfunctions in the release behavior of the segments of this type propelling cage sabot are responsible. In particular, it has been observed, that the frontal portion of each sabot segment, particularly in connection with very long propelling cages, is not released uniformly from the projectile and without further influencing the projectile as expected. More specifically, although the frontal portion of each sabot segment does lift off from the outer jacket or circumferential surface of the projectile under the influence of the dynamic pressure of the in flowing air, the frontal portion is bent backward while the rear side of the sabot segment is still in contact with the projectile, and thus impacts on the projectile in a manner which impairs the precision of the projectile trajectory.